Idealist aesthetics identify form and content, not technique and plot

Evidence

Historical-psychological processes, in their fluctuations and complexities, can never be completely rationalized. Geometry, by contrast, does have the power to isolate absolutely pure forms out of their material realizations. It should always be remembered that this identity of the kinds of interaction in the face of the simultaneously existing variety of human or objective material (and vice versa) is nothing primarily but a device to make and legitimate the scientific discrimination between form and content in the treatment of empirical phenomena. Methodologically speaking, this discrimination would be required even if the actual constellations did not call for the inductive procedure of crystallizing the like out of the unlike. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 204 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: The form-content distinction is a methodological device, not a real separation — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 204; Narrative categories like character and plot are the form of content, not content itself — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 6030; Art, religion, and philosophy differ only in form, not content — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 944 (+2 more)

Related

• The form-content distinction is a methodological device, not a real separation (similarity 0.91)
• Croce’s content-form identity is a philosophic category, not literary technique (similarity 0.86)
• Form and content readings are exchangeable refocusings of the same phenomenon (similarity 0.84)
• Art, religion, and philosophy differ only in form, not content (similarity 0.83)
• Narrative categories like character and plot are the form of content, not content itself (similarity 0.82)
• No mental form shapes all material uniformly regardless of its structure (similarity 0.79)
• The formal content distinction in sociology can only be illustrated, not yet defined (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The form-content distinction is a methodological device, not a real separation #qualifies (0.82) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 204